26 September 2008

Baking in London, part 2.

One should never underestimate the power of flour. Although butter, sugar and eggs (= fat, sweetener & binder) make baked goods taste delicious, it is only with flour that one can achieve baked-goods at all. It sounds so basic and elementary. It is. But these descriptors make the process of baking in another country from the one you're used to, no less complex or challenging. Or both. And then some.

Flour, or I should specify, wheat flour, is a multifaceted creature with many outfits. It can be cruel one day and loving the next. It can hold your sandwich bread-house up or pet your cake into melting submission. One day your crumb is light, even and perfect, the next it's dense and dreadful.

Wheat is a transformational grain, and depending on what you need it for, highly reliable.

But flour is changeable. Every bag of the powdery stuff is a snowflake, and terroir is of utmost importance. Who knew?

Bread bakers. Bread bakers knew.

There has always been bread. Pastries* came much much later. {*We have the Catherine de Medici to thank for that. Grazie Bella!}

Bread bakers are a rare breed. They are tough yet emotional, intuitive yet scientific, sorcerers and alchemists yet methodical, regimented time-keepers. They, too, wear many pairs of socks. To be a bread baker one must understand flour intimately because all bread is is flour and water (= moisture content.)

Which brings me to gluten. Gluten is protein living in wheat. It exists in many other non-wheat flours, and there are also a whole slew of flours where gluten is completely absent. Protein is structure. It is strength and spine and 2X4's and taut; gluten is the superhero hiding inside every grain of wheat. Just a bit of agitation will coax it out and, voila!, Wheat with a big W on it's chest and a long flowing cape emerges chest out, fists clenched. Ready.

It sounds like a tangent but it is not.

Perhaps my writing style is too flowery?

Protein is an umbrella term for what we professional cooks call all "dead animal" in the kitchen. It's a simplification of the food group but there it is. In this example, though, it's an important piece of the flour puzzle.

When you place a steak, a piece of fish, or even slabs of tofu in a hot pan the first thing you will notice is a seizing, a tightening, of that piece of protein. The protein contracts. It pulls in like you do when you step out into the snow in a T shirt. Know how to tell when a lamb chop is rare, mid rare and well done? You touch it and test for varying degrees of tenderness. The tighter the protein feels, the more "done" it is.

See where I'm going?

The reason for kneading bread dough is to work it. Work it! Push and pull, press and release, stretch and ricochet--- all that work is for coaxing gluten. Notice what happens when you begin to knead? The dough gets warmer, more elastic. In turn, if too much gluten is ignited, depending on what your end baked-good desired result is, you either need to throw out and start over, or rest said dough in a cool or freezing environment.

Gluten thrives in heat and sleeps in cold.

This is why most pie doughs (= pate brisee) will have you chill them before rolling out. Rolling dough is like kneading-- it is a form of agitation. An over activation of gluten where you don't want it creates "toughness."

But what does it all mean?

When you build a house, which is what a loaf of bread is, on a smaller scale, you need structural walls. Something needs to hold the roof up. But inside that house there are walls that separate rooms and they can be knocked out without the house falling down. Not all living structures are equal. In some bread you need a lot of structure, aka gluten, in others, not so much; and in sweeter breads, aka cookies and cakes, gluten needs to be present a bit, so that your baked good holds together, but not nearly as much.

Gluten is a thirsty protein. The stronger the flour (stronger = higher in gluten) the more moisture it is going to require. In turn, the stronger the flour, the drier your baked good will be, finished. The rate of moisture absorbtions also based on the grind of the flour. A grain ground finer will be thirstier, in turn more drying. [But we won't concentrate on grinds in this post-- too much information and you're likely to quit eggbeater altogether. One geeky point at a time.]

Moisture is not just water. It is sugar and fat as well. Sugar is many things: sweetener of course, but also color attractor, tenderizer and moisturizer. Inherent in many fats is the presence of water, as well.

Understanding the make-up of your flour is the beginning of being a better baker. As we all know, there are many variables in baking. We have so many choices! [Too many?] Some things needs to be constants. Decisions need to be made. If you're baking at home you can experiment every day. But in a commercial environment consistency is key.

In the last days I have made many of my tried and true recipes for cakes and quick breads. I have learned that in that England the "regular," (All-Purpose in America) Plain Flour here is very strong. The learning curve is steep and frustrating at first but the challenge brings great rewards, because with process comes education. A deeper understanding of the craft.

A renewing of re-learning and remembering.

And to be sure, a delicious appreciation of England's fantastic dairy, which will not be a post, per se, but an homage, if I can do it justice with mere words on a screen.

Please keep explaining! This is exactly the kind of information I need/want. I want to bake bread. And sweet rolls. With a nice crumb that's not... well, crumbly! I want it to tear apart in large feathery sheets that want to stick together... And I know Gluten is the key, I just don't know how to make it behave the way I want it to yet.

there are two basic flours...45 and 55... 45 is soft flour(same as pastry flour) and 55 is harder. 65, 80 and 110 are bread flour(higher ash and protein.."harder")

00 is for pasta, of course and then there is the extremely fine cake flour.

i gave up on baking when i came to the states..thankfully, bread wasnt my thing anyways...i could never decipher america's AP flour...it does require some label reading tho'...as far as my experience goes, king arthur's flour catalogues are somewhat expansive. i know they have a type 65 for bread.

honestly, i'd rather hear you when you find the time to wax poetic about the glory that is english dairy..their butter and cream...its splendid! french butter sucks by comparison. and america has nothing like it.

FaustianBargain,

So interesting to see you here again, after our last run in. Thank you for illuminating us on commercial flour names in Britain. The only place I would give argument is where you speak of 00 flour. I worked with an American pastry chef who used this flour instead of a popular soft wheat flour called White Lilly to make ethereal biscuits.

Dan Lepard, of London's inimitable Newspaper, the Guardian educates us all in his recent column When Baking isn't a Piece of Cake further about different types of 00 flour, of which I had absolutely no idea. {I hope all this code makes sense, I am writing it freehand.} See you again soon, then? - Shuna

well..i rather like your blog and so i decided not to interfere with my comments..i got to say what i have to say or i should just stay out of it..you know what i mean?

but now, i.could.not.resist. you are talking flour..oh well..

re 00..its a fine flour(there is also 0 and 000)...it can be used for pasta, pizza as well as shortcrust/cookies etc because its a grind thing rather than the kind of wheat/amount of protein/ash etc. certainly, there are different types of 00 grind....altho' i have only worked with 00 for pasta. you can really 'work' the dough. its beautiful for fresh pasta.

when you say that an american pastry chef uses it for 'biscuits'..do you mean english biscuits(like cookies, i guess..but only its not cookies..gah) or like southern style(american) biscuits?

i am sorry..i should have mentioned that t-45,55,65,80,110,150 etc are all french standards for flour. we followed french standards except when it came to pasta when italian flours were used and in italy, it can be 0,00,000 and it has to do with grind size...there can be 00 pizza flour and 00 pastry flour and 00 bread flour.

i dont know if the english have their own flour standards, but the french is widely adopted by most professional bakers.

I stumbled across your blog just the other day when I was looking for some baking tips. Having just moved to the UK from the US, it's been a bit of an adventure exploring the grocery stores and markets, and getting my kitchen stocked up with all that I need.

I have a question for you. I've tried baking simple chocolate chip cookies from scratch (which I've done a million times back in the US) twice now and they've been disasters! I'm pretty sure all my measurements were correct but the cookies bake out paper thin and I have to scrape them off of the pan, directly into the garbage bin. What am I doing wrong? I'm using the typical ingredients: plain flour, granulated sugar, dark brown sugar (couldn't find light brown sugar with the sticky consistency that it has in the States), baking soda, butter, a little bit of salt, eggs, vanilla extract, and chocolate chips.

I know moving on to bake muffins, cupcakes, brownies and all my other favorites will be impossible if I can't manage a simple cookie. Is there some trick to baking in the UK that I'm missing? The recipe suggested baking at 190C, which I started at but then turned down a bit. I have no idea if it's a fan assisted oven or a still.

Any tips would be very much appreciated!

hello Eleanor,

This is a great question! A few to answer:

1. SOFT dark or light brown sugar is what you're looking for. Do not replace Muscovado sugar with dark brown though, they are not one in the same.

2. Plain flour-- check the protein content on the side of the package. Try to find flour with a number closer to 10% than 12 or more.

3. You're instinct is right-- 190C is way way too high for cookies. Especially if you are using a fan assisted oven. The way you can tell if your oven is fan assisted is if it makes a fairly loud whirring/blowing sound when it's on. That fan shuts off when you open the door and you can usually see it moving/slowing down. Fan assisted ovens increase temperatures by at least 15 degrees and sometimes as much as 25! For a regular still oven I would say 165-170C should be fine and for fan assisted try 150C as your starting point.

Butter, though, is your main concern, it sound like. Know that what you had access to in America was far less butterfatty than what you can get here. Take your same recipe and decrease butter amount by 20% and then see what your cookie looks like. Or, make your recipe exactly as you have been making it, test one cookie in the oven, and if it spreads too much, add flour in a Tablespoon at a time, & after each, test another cookie.

I don't know what home baking trays look like in the UK but commercial ones tens to be made out of Blue Steel. They are heavy and black and attract a lot of heat and a lot of colour to that which we are baking on it. If you are using one of these, double pan your cookies to see if that helps too.

I hope you will be as happy to bake here as I have become. The raw ingredients are of extremely high quality; butter, flour, eggs, cream, sugars, and once you have the hang of the differences, I think you will be a productive & excited baker.

Do feel free to check in again and tell me if/how my suggestions were helpful or not-- I am open to all feedback! ~ Shuna

Shuna - Thank you so much for the suggestions! Reducing the butter worked like a charm. I've successfully baked a batch of sugar cookies. Now on to bigger and better treats!

Eleanor!! This is the best news ever. Thank you for taking the time to come back & tell us about your results. If I may be allowed to be a bit corny; to me this is what eggbeater is all about. So thank you for helping to enrich it further! ~ Shuna